How Much Does it Cost?
Of course, I’m writing this review before the stock is available on Amazon. However, I will update the prices as the stock goes live after we publish the review. For now, though, you can check the up to date stock for the Gigabyte B550I AORUS PRO AX Motherboard on Amazon UK here, and on Amazon US here.
Overview
The Gigabyte B550I AORUS PRO AX Motherboard gets a huge thumbs up from me before it even went on the test bench. It’s mini-ITX and that’s honestly a very rare thing these days. Most of the brands put out mostly ATX, and maybe one mini-ITX. If we’re lucky, we may see an mATX too, but those are even rarer than new mini-ITX models these days. Not for AORUS though, they’ve given us the premium mini-ITX board I’ve been waiting for. Plus, they’ve really crammed in a LOT of cool features and premium hardware, ensuring it can keep up with its full-size ATX counterparts.
Build Quality & Design
They’ve kept it sensible with the VRM on this board, offering up 8 Phases with 90A Smart Power Stages. I’m not saying more isn’t better, but this is still more than enough for any AM4 CPU on the market today. Plus, you get a strong focus on premium hardware throughout. The VRM cooling is decent, the DIMM and PCIe slots are all armoured, and there are a big double stack VRM heatsink and backplate design. It’s a really robust and clean looking motherboard overall.
Performance
It’s pretty great actually, and despite having a smaller board and less VRM hardware than the other boards we’ve tested for the B550 launch, it’s trading blows with them all in every benchmark. It’s still going to be able to hit those boost clocks and even overclock regardless, so no issues there.
What I do like is that you get lots of performance in other areas beyond the CPU. You still get PCIe Gen 4 and on the M.2 bay. Plus, you get an additional Gen 3 M.2 bay. You get super-fast networking with both 2.5 GbE LAN and WiFi 6, you get super-fast USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C too. mini-ITX it may be, but it’s not lacking in big features.
Added Value
Honestly, I think the best things on this motherboard are the M.2 mounts. They’ve really crammed a lot of hardware into that small space. A larger heatsink and heatpipe that joins up with the VRM cooling, a Gen 4 and a Gen 3 PCIe drive mount, and then still have the armoured PCIe slot below that.
Should I Buy One?
There aren’t many mini-ITX options out there for each motherboard launch, but when it comes to the B550I AORUS PRO AX, it’s as good as many of the full-ATX models out there. Fast, compact, stylish and brimming with features. Highly recommended.
